A night of shattered dreams: inside election day with Hillary Clinton

Sabrina Siddiqui relays her experience as a pool reporter, part of a small group shadowing Clinton and her top aides, in the final 24 hours of her bid to make history as the first female US president

Hillary Clinton had barely slept in 24 hours when she arrived at her polling station in upstate New York to cast her ballot, on the crisp autumn day that would eventually determine that she would not, after all, break that highest, hardest glass ceiling.

The final day of her 18-month campaign to be the USs first female president had seen her blitz through four cities in three battleground states, and culminated in a bespectacled Clinton bounding off her plane to her campaign anthem, Fight Song by Rachel Platten, before a couple of hundred supporters who braved the 3.30am wind chill at the Westchester County airport.

About four hours later, at least 100 well-wishers assembled at the Douglas G Griffin elementary school in Clintons adopted hometown of Chappaqua to watch her cast her vote.

It is the most humbling feeling, she told CNN when asked how it felt to vote for herself, because I know how much responsibility goes with this and so many people are counting on the outcome of this election, what it means for our country, and I will do the very best I can if Im fortunate enough to win today.

To have a woman on the ballot as the nominee of a major party was a first in Americas 240-year history and Clinton said she had thought about her mother when she cast her ballot.

Her language at the polling station echoed the cautiously optimistic tone that had dominated the final two weeks of her campaign. Shifting from her routine stump speech, the Democratic nominee had begun to look beyond the 8 November election, the first time many reporters had witnessed her allowing herself to do that in 18 months of covering her campaign.

She spoke of a certainty that voters would choose an open, inclusive, big-hearted America, and told voters in Manchester, New Hampshire: We will have some work to do to bring about healing and reconciliation after this election.

The country would need to come together, Clinton said repeatedly, whether standing before several dozen parishioners at a black church in Philadelphia in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania or before thousands of students gathered under the fall foliage at an outdoor park in that states other major city, Pittsburgh.

There is fear and anger in our country, Clinton said in Pittsburgh. But anger is not a plan. We have got to start talking to each other again.

Beneath the veneer of her carefully chosen words, Clinton had already begun to frame the aftermath of the election as though victory was well within sight. Neither she nor her campaign seemed to foresee that American voters would resoundingly reject a plea to hold on to unity in favour of division, and choose fear over hope.

But they did precisely that on Tuesday, propelling Donald Trump to the nations highest office in a stunning affirmation of a wholly different definition of America and its identity.

As Clinton hopscotched across a small set of critical swing states in those final days, top aides sauntered to the back cabin of her campaign plane daily to brief the traveling press on the state of the race. An at-capacity group of 42 reporters huddled in the aisle or climbed on to their seats to record vital details on how the campaign was executing its turnout strategy, rooted in a massive ground game they claimed was slowly cultivating a lead too insurmountable for Trump to overcome.

Standing near a barricade separating the press from the crowd at one of Clintons final rallies on Monday, a senior campaign official predicted wins in Nevada, Michigan, Florida, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, deeming only North Carolina a tossup. Only New Hampshire and Nevada would eventually be won.

The official even quietly entertained what a President-elect Clintons itinerary might look like after Tuesday, telling reporters she would need some downtime before probably flying to Washington on Thursday to meet with Barack Obama.

Timing of announcements for a potential transition team was unclear, but the aide was willing to indulge an exhausted press corps and speculateon when they might finally be safe taking a break from a grueling schedule that for some had spanned more than two years trailing Clinton.

Somewhat lost at that moment was the fact that the conversation was taking place in Michigan, where Clinton held a rally for 4,600 supporters at a basketball gymnasium in Grand Rapids.

The Clinton campaign remained bullish about its chances in Michigan, insisting that its decision to make a last-minute trip to the state, and dispatch President Obama there too, was merely the product of taking no votes for granted. But in retrospect, it presaged the Trump insurgency, both there Trump looks likely to have won the state for the Republicans for the first time since 1988 and across the US, and the attendant cracks in the so-called Democratic firewall.

But if the Clinton campaigns major weakness was in Michigan, the odds pointed to a similar trend in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania (Democratic since 1992) and the rest of the midwest too, where the campaign and most of the pollsters and pundits underestimated the large number of white voterswho would flock to the Republican nominee. In its pursuit of more diverse states, Clintons team failed to shore up the Democrats long-held base in the so-called rust belt, despite recurring signs that Trump was appealing to working-class, less-educated white voters.

If there was any concern within the Clinton campaign in its final stretch, it was instead over the untold damage caused by the announcement by the FBI director, James Comey, at the end of October that his agency was reviewing a new batch of emails that might be pertinent to the previous investigation into her use of a private server while heading the Department of State.

The jolt was delivered 11 days before the election, as Clinton was flying between campaign events, placing another cloud of suspicion over a candidate polling persistently low in trustworthiness. Aides downplayed its significance on the polls, conceding only that the renewed focus on emails distracted Clinton from her message with precious time remaining to seal the deal with undecided voters.

It frustrated us because it was a diversion from the things Hillary wanted to talk about, Clintons campaign manager, Robby Mook, said. But we havent seen it impact her support.

But on Sunday, as Clintons plane was again airborne between rallies, the matter was resolved just as abruptly. In a new letter to Congress, Comey reaffirmed the FBIs earlier assessment clearing Clinton of any criminal activity.

Moments after the news broke, campaign spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri could be seen entering Clintons private front cabin. She soon emerged before a frantic press corps and offered a short statement a testament to the campaigns desire to put the issue to rest. I have seen Director Comeys latest letter to the Hill. Were glad to see that he has found, as we were confident that he would, that he has confirmed the conclusions that he reached in July, and were glad this matter is resolved, Palmieri told reporters traveling with the campaign to Ohio.

It was clearly a welcome development for the campaign, and top aides could be seen smiling in their section of the plane while scouring the news reports.

When Clintons flight touched down for a rally in Cleveland, the candidate left the plane with Cheryl Mills, her former chief of staff at the state department, who had kept a distance from the trail for much of the campaign amid the email controversy. They descended the stairs outside Clintons 737 with the sun setting behind them.

Bolstering Clintons confidence going into the polls was a tour de force final act that brought together some of the countrys most prominent artists. Music icons Jay Z and Beyonc ignited a stadium of 10,000 in Cleveland on Friday, an endorsement Clinton eagerly touted in the subsequent days.

I got to say, I was with Jay Z and Beyonc, she gushed at nearly each one of her remaining nine rallies. My personal favorite part was Beyonc had her backup singers and dancers in pantsuits.

Each celebrity who joined Clinton for her last push seemed to top the previous night, giving her closing appearances an aura of celebration.

There was Katy Perry, wearing a stars and stripes dress, belting out her most famous pop numbers; singer-songwriter James Taylor soothed an anxious New Hampshire crowd with the lyrics Shower the people you love with love; Bruce Springsteen captivated 32,000, Clintons largest crowd yet, on the eve of the election in Philadelphia; and at Clintons final rally, Lady Gaga dueted with Jon Bon Jovi, who even hopped aboard the plane for its last two legs.

The mood was so jubilant that during her final voyage, Clinton, her family and all of the staff aboard her plane taped a tongue-in-cheek video based on a viral challenge that required participants to pose as mannequins. A camera panned their frames, frozen toward the front cabin, before finally fixing its shot on Clinton. The group swiftly burst into laughter as the words Dont stand still: Vote today flashed before the screen.

It was almost an afterthought, promoted primarily on social media as voters had already headed toward the polls. An aide implied the video was filmed almost just for fun, as a light-hearted way to cap off a night with a historic feel.

Hillary and Bill Clinton do mannequin challenge Clinton had just held its biggest rally of the campaign, outside Philadelphias Independence Hall, where she was joined in making her closing argument by Bill and Chelsea Clinton and the Obamas. As tens of thousands descended upon the site where the founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence and debated the US constitution, there was a remarkable poignancy about the prospect of the nations first black president passing the baton to its first female president.

I am betting that tomorrow you will reject fear and youll choose hope, Barack Obama said. Im betting that the wisdom and decency and generosity of the American people will once again win the day. And that is a bet that I have never, ever lost.

Clintons campaign had bet all its odds on the same unshakable belief in what was in the minds and hearts of most Americans. At a rally on the penultimate day of her campaign, she took the stage in New Hampshire with Khizr Khan, the father of the fallen Iraq war hero whose rebuke of Trump at the Democratic national convention in July ranked among the most stirring moments of the campaign cycle, and led to a characteristically intemperate and racially inflected response from Trump.

Khan, while introducing Clinton, made yet another impassioned appeal against the Republican nominee, asking if Muslims, Latinos or African Americans would have a place in Trumps America.

Would anyone who isnt like you have a place in your America, Donald Trump? Khan asked. Well, thankfully Mr Trump, this isnt your America.

But Clinton and her supporters would soon learn otherwise. Her platform of social justice, progressive ideas and a vow to restore what she called love and kindness proved woefully insufficient. A grassroots uprising, intent on upending the political establishment and rejecting the changing demographics of America, slowly and painfully plucked away the electoral votes that held Clintons path to victory, although with 98% of precincts reporting on Wednesday it seemed she had beaten Trump in the popular vote, 47.7% to 47.5%.

Clinton had arrived at the Peninsula hotel in New York on Tuesday expecting towatch voting returns that would cement her place in history. Within an hour of her arrival, a team of aides went into her suite to begin work on Clintons remarks to be delivered at the Jacob Javits convention center, a building encased by the largest glass ceiling in Manhattan.

Charlotte, Clintons two-year-old granddaughter, had donned a dress bearing her campaign logo: an H with a forward-facing arrow. It was symbolic of one of Clintons thematic lines on the stump, dedicated to the Charlottes of the country, in which she expressed her desire to build a an America where a father can tell his daughter, Yes, you can be anything you want to be. Even president of the United States.

But as the returns trickled in, the Clinton campaign soon went dark. The tension was apparent as reporters repeatedly sought updates via phone, email and text but were met with radio silence.

In the end, Clinton never made it to the stage with her granddaughter. Thousands streamed out of the Javits center in tears, many of them women and girls.

America had chosen to build a different future.

On Wednesday, Clinton appeared instead at the New Yorker hotel and addressed female supporters directly in a concession speech in which she called on Americans to accept the US election result.